Around the NBA II

[mttwlsn16]

Zero chance we move Aus the boss lol

[Ranma]

[Quake Griffin]

what's wrong with Luc?

at least he defends

[nickhx2]

he's worse than a non-entity on offense. when you pass up wide open shots then the defenses get used to that and they just send extra help to the ball ALL of the time.

cp3 and blake are great but it's too taxing on them to be doubled all the time. it grinds down our offense and makes it predictable, and that's bad for business.

that's why i think lance or wes need to start, because with wes he will take (and make) a ton of corner 3's. he's not afraid to shoot at all. with lance, he will pass up open shots and drive you nuts but he'll also make some great passes which keeps the offense flowing and hard to predict.

[nickhx2]

also, one other really relevant thing is something that used to happen all last year. smart teams would switch their 3 onto our jj or cp3 (like spurs with kawhi) while at the same time hiding their weaker guards on matt barnes, because barnes wasn't much of an offensive player. barnes never had a post up game or a way to punish tony parker, so switching there creates a pretty big advantage for opposing defenses.

this year it'll be even worse because at least matt would shoot when open or do some cutting. luc usually looks like he's a lost puppy out on the highway.

honestly while he's contributed, i kind of wish we had signed chuck hayes instead of him. there are better options in the starting spot if he's going to be as timid as he is.

[Ranma]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/BenGolliver/status/682400540144332801[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/World_Wide_Wob/status/682399817272823808[/tweet]

[Ranma]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/iamvega1982/status/682407724588634112[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/chicagobulls/status/682407856142979074[/tweet]

[Ranma]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/TheCauldron/status/682777241990918144[/tweet]

[QRich3]

what's wrong with Luc?

at least he defends

Nothing is, he's playing his heart out and he's the best option this team has at SF. It's just that people usually gets caught in what a player can't do, specially if what he can't do is on offense. But he gives us a lot more on defense than what he takes away from the offense. I'm greatly surprised by how good he's playing.

[og15]

also, one other really relevant thing is something that used to happen all last year. smart teams would switch their 3 onto our jj or cp3 (like spurs with kawhi) while at the same time hiding their weaker guards on matt barnes, because barnes wasn't much of an offensive player. barnes never had a post up game or a way to punish tony parker, so switching there creates a pretty big advantage for opposing defenses.

this year it'll be even worse because at least matt would shoot when open or do some cutting. luc usually looks like he's a lost puppy out on the highway.

honestly while he's contributed, i kind of wish we had signed chuck hayes instead of him. there are better options in the starting spot if he's going to be as timid as he is.

I'll take Luc over Hayes, don't think Hayes can do much these days, he's an undersized C who can't protect the rim, and his rebounding has dropped compared to his hey day. Cole is better than him, so he wouldn't play.

I do agree that he can't be timid on open shots, but I'd prefer him to be conservative in his shot selection than to throw up shots that are out of his ability range. I like the help he brings not just in man to man defense, but actually also on rebounding, he tends to actually get a body on people.

If we look at the starting lineup with Luc after 13 games and 204 minutes:
111.3 Ortg / 99.6 Drtg / 54% eFG / 56% TS

Here's how that lineup compares to other lineups with:
100+ mins
and
150 + mins

At 100 minutes, they are 9th among league lineups in Ortg, and at 150 mins, they are 4th in Ortg. For 100 mins, one of those other lineups is a Clipper lineup too, so might as well call then 8th, and two are GS, so move up to 7th in terms of teams. That's not bad for having a guy like Luc as your starting SF.

Now, this still hasn't matched the efficacy of the starting lineup unit with Lance at SF, but Doc has clearly gone away from that, so we won't know if that unit could have continued to be effective or not.

What I do want to highlight with Luc starting though, is this:

29.7% OREB
79.8% DREB
54.3% TREB

That has been the best rebounding lineup of all the Clippers starting lineups that have played significant minutes. The next best is surprisingly the lineup with Pierce starting over the past couple of games (26% OREB, 75.8% DREB, 53.6% TREB), but sample size is small there. Among league lineups with 100+ minutes, that lineup is 8th in total rebound percentage, matching the SA starters lineup.

I think for the players the team has, Luc has done quite well. I agree, he could give more on offense, and I am still curious about experimenting with Lance as a starter again because as a lineup, they were succesful despite some hickups of getting used to each other and such. I think it was certainly a new thing for that starting lineup to have a SF who could and wanted to do more than just spot up and slash once in a while, and Doc should have given it a little more time. Would it be nice to have a guy like Al-Farouq? Of course, but we've missed the train on that one, and he's graduated to bigger money now and is even looking like a decent enough 3PT shooter this season with 5.1 3PA/36 at 35.6%, but gotta make due with what you have.

[QRich3]

I was just looking at line up numbers and posting them on the other thread too, but I wanna highlight og's last point cause it's an important one. It'd be great to have someone like Aminu or Ariza, but we never had the means of getting someone like that. If every team had an exception to add the player they're missing things would be a lot easier, but the salary cap is there for a reason. At least we have a defensive wing who, while flawed, brings a lot of the things we need the most, and that's no small thing.

[nickhx2]

also, one other really relevant thing is something that used to happen all last year. smart teams would switch their 3 onto our jj or cp3 (like spurs with kawhi) while at the same time hiding their weaker guards on matt barnes, because barnes wasn't much of an offensive player. barnes never had a post up game or a way to punish tony parker, so switching there creates a pretty big advantage for opposing defenses.

this year it'll be even worse because at least matt would shoot when open or do some cutting. luc usually looks like he's a lost puppy out on the highway.

honestly while he's contributed, i kind of wish we had signed chuck hayes instead of him. there are better options in the starting spot if he's going to be as timid as he is.

I'll take Luc over Hayes, don't think Hayes can do much these days, he's an undersized C who can't protect the rim, and his rebounding has dropped compared to his hey day. Cole is better than him, so he wouldn't play.

I do agree that he can't be timid on open shots, but I'd prefer him to be conservative in his shot selection than to throw up shots that are out of his ability range. I like the help he brings not just in man to man defense, but actually also on rebounding, he tends to actually get a body on people.

If we look at the starting lineup with Luc after 13 games and 204 minutes:
111.3 Ortg / 99.6 Drtg / 54% eFG / 56% TS

Here's how that lineup compares to other lineups with:
100+ mins
and
150 + mins

At 100 minutes, they are 9th among league lineups in Ortg, and at 150 mins, they are 4th in Ortg. For 100 mins, one of those other lineups is a Clipper lineup too, so might as well call then 8th, and two are GS, so move up to 7th in terms of teams. That's not bad for having a guy like Luc as your starting SF.

Now, this still hasn't matched the efficacy of the starting lineup unit with Lance at SF, but Doc has clearly gone away from that, so we won't know if that unit could have continued to be effective or not.

What I do want to highlight with Luc starting though, is this:

29.7% OREB
79.8% DREB
54.3% TREB

That has been the best rebounding lineup of all the Clippers starting lineups that have played significant minutes. The next best is surprisingly the lineup with Pierce starting over the past couple of games (26% OREB, 75.8% DREB, 53.6% TREB), but sample size is small there. Among league lineups with 100+ minutes, that lineup is 8th in total rebound percentage, matching the SA starters lineup.

I think for the players the team has, Luc has done quite well. I agree, he could give more on offense, and I am still curious about experimenting with Lance as a starter again because as a lineup, they were succesful despite some hickups of getting used to each other and such. I think it was certainly a new thing for that starting lineup to have a SF who could and wanted to do more than just spot up and slash once in a while, and Doc should have given it a little more time. Would it be nice to have a guy like Al-Farouq? Of course, but we've missed the train on that one, and he's graduated to bigger money now and is even looking like a decent enough 3PT shooter this season with 5.1 3PA/36 at 35.6%, but gotta make due with what you have.

Yeah, LR's done a pretty solid job all things considered. I'm sure many others would love him to be the perfect SF for the team but what are you gonna do with a minimum vet guy. One thing I liked about watching him play with the starters was that he had a kind of "team" effect on netting extra possessions and rebounding, but I wasn't sure it was quantifiable. I guess I could have been a bit smarter and looked at the team rebounding rate.

I also feel the same way about lance. If that net rating didn't have a pretty decent sample size, I wouldn't think twice about it. But 150 minutes is pretty sizable. And though it may not have been the best place for lance to be lance, maybe that's not such a bad thing, and maybe getting your starting unit to be a +20 net rating force is greater than what you'd get with lance coming off the bench (or not playing at all).

Lance passed up a lot of wide open 3's he should have been taking, and he did some confounding things but he didn't have a bad effect on them. I thought his passing added a big boost to our already elite offense and the rest would have come around with time. The hiccups you mentioned were minor things that would have been smoothed out with each passing game, as I thought he clearly looked uncomfortable as he was trying pretty hard to acclimate himself. It's unfortunate that we'll probably never know if LR being the starter (even though the team has done well with him) is truly better or worse than lance in that spot.

[Ranma]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/FlyByKnite/status/684426507255590912[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/FlyByKnite/status/684582374680715265[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/FlyByKnite/status/684582788465442816[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/RyoRyo719/status/681377242245537793[/tweet]

[mkwest]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/Blazers__Nation/status/686405748209901569[/tweet]

Clippers are now 1 game out of 3rd in the West.

On a side note, the Clippers have the right to swap 2nd round picks with the Nets if own pick is between 31-55 (protected 56-60). If the Clippers pick is 56-60, then the right to swap with the Nets is extinguished, but the pick would go to Cleveland. The Clippers currently have the 5th best record in the league, so our 2nd would go to Cleveland if the season ended today. In the event that the West were to stay the same, we would need an eastern team to pass us in the standings in order to swap picks with Brooklyn, which is basically equivalent to a late 1st (33rd pick as of now).

[Ranma]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/canpelister/status/686329392910462977[/tweet]

Update: Tweet was just deleted. It previously quoted Doc as saying that you're given a number for 1 day with regard to draft position and that the rest is up to you presumably with regard to finding talent. How about developing that talent as well?

[QRich3]

^ it's protected 31-55 no? as in, if we get the 6th or worse record, we get Brooklyn's 33rd pick. Unless we overtake OKC, it seems pretty safe we're gonna get the 5th best record, so we'd need the Bulls to overachieve and get a better record than us, which doesn't seem all that likely.

For all the whining and fans of other teams laughing at how bad we've fallen down (for the 2nd consecutive season), we're pretty clearly a top 5 team a the very least, again. And that's gonna make it difficult to get the Nets pick.

[mkwest]

^ it's protected 31-55 no? as in, if we get the 6th or worse record, we get Brooklyn's 33rd pick. Unless we overtake OKC, it seems pretty safe we're gonna get the 5th best record, so we'd need the Bulls to overachieve and get a better record than us, which doesn't seem all that likely.

For all the whining and fans of other teams laughing at how bad we've fallen down (for the 2nd consecutive season), we're pretty clearly a top 5 team a the very least, again. And that's gonna make it difficult to get the Nets pick.

Right. We either get Brooklyn's pick because 5 other teams have a better record (or we tie for 5th place team and win the coin toss, which would give us the higher 1st round slot and the lower 2nd round slot) or Cleveland gets our 2nd pick.

For me, it was a silver lining with the rough start, but it definitely is looking less likely now. I'd rather us play and very well and lose out on the pick, than to struggle just to keep it.

[Ranma]

What? Did B-Diddly get bored of making movies? It's curious that Benedict Brand also came out of retirement recently. The two movie mogul wannabes might have found Hollywood not as receptive to their projects as they had hoped.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/Chris_Reichert/status/687035503510556672[/tweet]

[Quake Griffin]

Does anybody know if our owner, Steve Ballmer, is still working with that group led by Chris Hansen that's trying to build a new arena in Seattle?

And if you know, do you know the implications of it and how it can affect us?

[Neddy]

Does anybody know if our owner, Steve Ballmer, is still working with that group led by Chris Hansen that's trying to build a new arena in Seattle?

And if you know, do you know the implications of it and how it can affect us?

once he bought the clippers, steve cut all ties with that project. at least that is how it has been reported here in Northwest, thus causing some grumbling from the fans of the sonics to still are hoping to be the next LA Rams.